BC Cycle Tourism Society builds its programs on evidence. Along the way we produce datasets and reports that may be useful to trail organizations, researchers, tourism planners, and advocates.
Everything on this page is preliminary. It is working material — shared early because it may be useful, not because it is finished. Figures and classifications are subject to revision.
Working on something related, or want to be kept in the loop as we release new reports and datasets? I'd love to hear from you: heather@bccycletourism.ca
The datasets on this page, except for the ones derived from OpenStreetMap data (see below), are released under CC0 1.0 Universal, a public domain dedication. We have waived our copyright worldwide. Use them, change them, redistribute them, build a product on them. No permission needed and no conditions attached.
Attribution is not legally required under CC0, but often requested as a community norm. A citation facilitates transparency and discovery, so thanks in advance! Every download carries a suggested citation, on the cover sheet of the spreadsheet and at the top of the plain-text column guide.
The written reports on this page — the Sea-to-Sky reports and the methodology PDFs — are prose rather than data, so they go out under CC BY 4.0 instead: share them and build on them, including commercially, as long as you credit us.
The code that produces these files is not packaged for release yet. We hope to release it soon. In the meantime, if you want to know exactly how a number was computed, ask and we will walk you through it.
A comparative database of 693 multi-day cycling routes worldwide, built to understand what makes routes succeed and how British Columbia compares.
Route inventory (Excel) — 693 routes with length, surface, terrain, country, and parent network.
Research bibliography (Excel) — 619 studies, reports, and articles about these routes: economic impact studies, visitor surveys, and planning documents, with links.
We compiled the routes by hand from route networks' own pages, guidebooks, and tourism inventories. The bibliography is the research we could find about those routes, not everything written about cycle tourism. Neither file is complete, lengths and surfaces are as each route's publisher states them, and a blank cell means we don't know, not that there is nothing to know.
Every published cycling route we list for British Columbia, with the measurements behind its difficulty tier and its descriptive labels: surface, ruggedness, traffic comfort, steepness, remoteness, and how much of the route we could measure at all. The routes are published by route makers across the province. What we add is one consistent description of all of them.
Route metrics (Excel) — one row per route, with a column guide and notes on what the numbers do and don't tell you. Also available as CSV with a separate plain-text column guide.
A blank cell means we could not measure that thing, not that it is zero. If you want the rider's version of what the labels mean, that lives on how we describe routes.
How we rate routes: methods and limitations (PDF) — the full methodology behind the dataset and the labels on our route pages: data sources, matching, every rule table and threshold, validation against HUB Cycling's Metro Vancouver labels, and an unsoftened list of limitations.
We are working on ways to characterize routes and bike touring options around British Columbia. Not just how hard a ride is, but what it feels like. Nearly every road and path in the province carries scores for traffic comfort, grade, surface, and remoteness, computed from OpenStreetMap along with public land cover and elevation data. Three more, flow, quiet, and scenic, are computed on 100 metre slices rather than whole roads.
Character map — an interactive map rather than a download. Seven ways of reading the same road. Click any road to see why it scored the way it did.
Road and path scores (CSV, about 96 MB, or gzipped at about 20 MB) — one row per road or path, 528,742 of them: the four whole-road scores, the name where OpenStreetMap has one, and a point on it so you can find it. Comes with a plain-text column guide. These three files are served from our asset host, so those links leave this page. The file is too big for Excel and is meant for pandas, R, or a database.
How we read the terrain: methods and limitations (PDF) — every rule, threshold, and diagram behind the seven scores, and an unsoftened account of what they do not tell you. One naming note: in the report, surface appears under its model name, ruggedness, and quiet as peaceful.
Two things to know before you use the file. The assumed speed and traffic columns are modelling inputs assigned from a road's classification, not measurements taken on it. On a separated path they are meaningless, which is why the map does not show them. And a blank cell means we could not measure that thing, not that it is zero: traffic comfort is blank on about a quarter of the rows, on paths where the classifier declines to guess.
These scores are computed, not ridden. We have calibrated them most carefully in Metro Vancouver, so expect rougher edges elsewhere in the province. Flow, quiet, and scenic are not in the file yet. They live on 100 metre slices, and rolling them up to a whole road needs a choice we are not ready to defend. Ask if you want them.
British Columbia transit routes and bicycle policies#
Which buses, ferries, water taxis, trains, and flights connect British Columbia's communities, and what each carrier does with a bicycle.
Routes and stops — 332 scheduled services and their 1,019 ordered stops, in two files: routes (Excel, also CSV and column guide), and stops (Excel, also CSV and column guide).
Journeys (Excel) — every way of getting between two communities, 77,076 of them, in the order we rank them. Also as CSV (16 MB) with a plain-text column guide.
These five files are CC0. They are our own compilation from operator sources, with no OpenStreetMap records in them.
How we map transit and bicycle policies (PDF) — where the data comes from, how a carrier's bicycle answer is reached, how the connections are computed, and what the whole thing does not tell you.
Places in British Columbia that a cyclist might want#
Our whole BC Bike Stops directory as data: 18,591 cafes, grocery stores, campgrounds, places to stay, bike shops, attractions, and transport connections, with where they are and what we know about how they treat an arriving cyclist. Three files that join on one column.
Places (Excel) — one row per place: category, community, coordinates, tier, ownership, and its OpenStreetMap identifier. Also as CSV (12 MB) with a plain-text column guide.
Amenities (Excel) — 55,050 rows, one per place and amenity, with the source and the date we recorded it. Long rather than wide, so it pivots. Also as CSV with a plain-text column guide.
Sources (Excel) — where every field of every place came from: OpenStreetMap, our own enrichment, a language model, or a person. Also as CSV with a plain-text column guide.
Everything, in one file (JSON Lines, gzipped, 6 MB) — the same places, whole: every field we hold, nested, including the amenity detail and the scores. This is the file our own trip planner reads. If something is missing from it, our planner cannot use it either.
How we build the stops directory (PDF) — where the listings come from, what earns each of the four tiers, how the categories and amenities are assigned, and what the directory does not cover.
Two reports prepared as input to a Sea-to-Sky rail feasibility study, April 2026.
Rail and Trail as Complementary Infrastructure (PDF) — Global evidence that rail and trail are mutually reinforcing: the trail generates rail passengers, and rail service amplifies the trail's economic output. Case studies from North America, Europe, Australasia, and East Asia.
Squamish–D'Arcy Bikeway: Cycle Tourism Economic Research (PDF) — The economic case for a bikeway on the corridor: comparable-trail benchmarks, visitor spending evidence, First Nations connections, emergency access, and extension scenarios. Companion appendices (PDF) with operational recommendations and full references.
These three reports are CC BY 4.0: share them and build on them, including commercially, with credit to BC Cycle Tourism Society.
Not everything we test has a spreadsheet. Cycle touring gear favourites: field-tested over tens of thousands of kilometres, sample size of one.
The research here uses AI assistance (Claude models, Anthropic) for data collection, analysis, and writing. Feel free to ask for more details if you are interested.
